Push and Pull
by July Storms
Summary: "What happened doesn't change anything."


**Push and Pull**

**Prompt**: "What happened doesn't change anything." Levi x Hange.

**Notes**: Requested by Ku-ri-su-ta-ru on Tumblr.

* * *

><p>It happens when Levi comes into her room to check on her. He enters and she's on the floor, papers all over the place, trying to find an answer that has done nothing but elude her.<p>

They're running out of time, so sacrifices must be made. In the grand scheme of things, she doesn't really matter at all. What are a few nights of sleep, what is her sanity, if it means finding even one answer?

But Levi stacks her papers and takes away her books and she's too tired to give him any trouble. When she just stares at him as if he's betrayed her, he says,

"What the hell's wrong with you?"

And she crumbles.

She blames it on a lack of sleep, blames it on the way her head aches, on the stiffness in her muscles from sitting awkwardly, on everything but the fact that once again, her not having an answer may cost people their lives.

* * *

><p>Levi leads her to the showers. She follows though she's not sure why. Usually she puts up a fight. He leaves her there, comes back when she's finished with clothes and a towel for her, makes sure her hair's dry, and takes her back to her room.<p>

"Sleep," he says, but she knows she'll just lie there for hours and hours and nothing will come of it.

It's better if she gets work done—doesn't he understand that?

But then he's tucking her into her bed, face not quite masking his concern, and she's struck by an impulse to touch him.

So she does. She brushes her fingers against his hand, and then up his forearm, against the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt, and when he asks her what she's doing, she doesn't have an answer; she just pulls him down against her, surprising even herself.

"I'm tired," she whispers against his shoulder.

"Then go to sleep."

"I can't," she says, but she's not sure she really speaks the words aloud, so she makes sure to say it again once or twice, just in case it's only in her head.

He responds to it by pulling away, and for some reason she panics, pulls him back down again, presses her lips against the side of his neck, breathes against his skin.

"What are you doing?" he asks her again.

Hange still doesn't know, and she tells him so, murmurs it against his skin and kisses the skin above his shirt collar again as if he'll have the answer for her.

He runs his fingers through her damp hair and doesn't stop her; when she's done, when she finally stops, he pulls back and then leans down to kiss her, his lips against hers. It's not a hard kiss, but it's not gentle, either; it has purpose behind it, and she hopes this is an answer, because she doesn't have any answers for anyone anymore.

Once again he takes the lead, trailing his lips over her skin, and she follows his example.

They end up sleeping together. He asks her three times if she's sure this is what she wants, and she says it is, begs him to stop asking questions just this once. He listens, pulls her nightshirt over her head, pays attention to her body, and she breathes him in, reminds herself with every touch, with every sound—that _this_ is why she needs to try harder, needs to do more; what she's doing isn't enough, it's never going to be enough, not until there are answers to all of the big questions.

Answers to those big questions… Those are what will keep everyone safe.

And until then, until everyone feels secure, until the world is a safe place, free from titans and shady governmental issues… Well, she'll just have to keep trying. Whether it's working through the night or isolating herself in a corner of a room somewhere to concentrate for hours or days or even weeks, she'll have to do it—do what it takes to find the answers they all desperately seek.

When it's over, when the physical pleasure fades, they lie together in her too-small bed. He stares at the ceiling, fingers absently brushing against her arm.

She closes her eyes and tries to think, but finds that her mind is marvelously and terrifyingly blank.

They don't hold one another, they don't speak of the fact that they've just experienced a great many firsts between them. They remain lost in their own thoughts, mentally separated despite the fact that the bed is too small for them to keep from physically touching.

* * *

><p>Hange regrets it the next morning.<p>

She wakes up, her limbs half-tangled with Levi's, and when she opens her eyes, he's staring at her.

She wonders if he slept at all.

"Hange," he says.

It's not even her given name. It sounds wrong after the way he'd moved inside of her the night before, makes her regret everything more than she really wants to.

"Hey," she whispers, and untangles herself, turning onto her back to look at the ceiling.

There's no tactful way to broach the subject of the previous night, of what they've done, and Hange's kind of glad it's Levi that finally breaks the silence with, "About last night, shitty-glasses."

"Yeah?" she asks, because she doesn't trust herself to say anything else.

"What was that, to you?"

She only has one answer to that, and it's, "I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I mean that I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."

And maybe he understands what she means and maybe he doesn't; she doesn't think she can explain it to him. She doesn't know the answers to the questions she needs to have answers for. She doesn't have answers that will save lives, answers that will keep people from dying, people like Levi's special operations squad, like Dita Ness. She doesn't have answers to logical questions like what titans are and why they're here and what the real purpose of a titan shifter is.

How can she possibly know what sex with Levi means to her?

She wishes for an answer. It was nice—not thinking for a little while. The smell of his skin, the warmth of his hand, the weight of his body: these things were all wonderful. But they weren't useful, either, and she knows it's selfish of her to have enjoyed them—to enjoy closeness to someone she cares for when she ought to have been finding answers.

"You're being negative." He sounds annoyed.

She scrambles for a way to make things right again; she's messed everything up between them. The way she'd touched him, the way his skin had felt beneath her lips; she had acted like an idiot. As much as she loves him…she knows what she did was wrong. She'd pulled him close and now she has to push him away again; it's cruel behavior. The pull of emotion contrasts against the push of work.

Friendships are hard enough to maintain under the circumstances. A romantic entanglement is impossible.

She has too much on her shoulders, too much to promise anyone anything, too much to be the kind of person Levi wants (needs?) her to be.

"What happened last night…" she finally manages to say, voice a bit unsteady. "It doesn't change anything."

"You're not serious."

She forces herself to continue, to whisper the words: "I'm sorry."

Levi's silent for a long time, but then he leaves her bed, gets dressed, and says, "I understand" in a voice that tells her he doesn't understand at all. Or maybe he does—only the words hurt more than he'll ever let her know.

"I'm sorry," she says again, and it's the truth. She is sorry—sorry that things are so impossible and sorry that she's so goddamn incapable of coming up with the answers that would make a real relationship possible.

She doesn't say that having sex with him was a mistake, though it was.

She doesn't say that she loves him, either.

But she does. She does love him. She has for years and years. And maybe five years ago she would have leapt at the chance to sleep with him, to feel—to _be_—loved by him, but now…

Now she's changed things by sleeping with him. What's happened isn't at all fair to Levi. She can't be what he wants, can't give him the attention he deserves, can't—

Can't have a relationship.

Not because of a fear of impending death, not because she's afraid of losing him, but because she doesn't deserve to have that with anyone.

He deserves better than she can give him right now.

Better than she'll ever be able to give him, because she doesn't always have the answers. They like to elude her, like to slip through her fingers like grains of sand, like to come to her in the middle of the night; and when she does find an answer, when she figures something out, she's happy for a while, pleased with her success, and sometimes for a moment she thinks all of their problems are solved and she can do whatever she wants—

But then another question comes to mind, and another, and there's never an end to them.

She can't do this again, can't pull him close to her at her convenience only to push him away again while she struggles to find the answers to all of the questions that plague her.

"I know," he says in response to her apology, standing in the doorway. "Do what you have to."

And then he's gone; her door closes with a click behind him, and she listens to his footsteps as he makes his way back down the corridor to his own room.

It is only when she hears a door far away close that she lets out a long, shuddering breath and presses the heels of her palms to her eyes.


End file.
